'Curators didn’t get time to prepare good pitch': Batting coach after India's 109 all out in Indore Test vs Australia

India lost half their side in the first hour on Day 1 of the third Test in Indore after opting to bat first against Australia. At the end of the first session, their score read 84/7. There were bound to be questions raised on the condition of the pitch. Yes, Australia have been bowled out quite cheaply twice in this Border-Gavaskar Trophy but on both those occasions, it happened on Day 3 and in the second innings. Indian pitches are expected to be difficult to bat from Day 3 onwards. But the Indore pitch offered vicious turn right from the onset. Australia left-arm spinner Matthew Kuhnemann came on to bowl as early as the fifth over of the day and straightaway got sharp turn. The results were the wickets of Rohit and Shubman Gill in quick succession - both of them succumbed to the turning delivery.

There was no stopping the slump. Cheteshwar Pujara (1) and Ravindra Jadeja (4) were removed by Nathan Lyon before Kuhnemann got into the act again to send Shreyas Iyer (0) back. Virat Kohli and KS Bharat got together to provide brief resistance but once Kohli was trapped by off-spinner Todd Murphy, it was one-way traffic again.

Kuhnemann picked two more to register his maiden five-wicket haul as Australia bowled India out for 109. At the end of he day's play, India's batting coach Vikram Rathour agreed that the pitch offered a lot more turn than the Indian team management expected but he was quick to defend the curators, saying that they did not have enough time to prepare the surface.

Also Read | Gavaskar blasts Jadeja after his 'unacceptable' error hurts India in 3rd Test

"We do prefer to play on turning tracks. That's our strength. To be fair, this is just a one-off wicket. The pitches for the first two Tests were not bad at all. It was drier than we expected. To be fair to the curators, they hardly got time to prepare a pitch. They had Ranji season here, it was pretty late that they decided that the match was being shifted here. I don't think they got enough time to prepare the pitch," Rathour told reporters.

This Test match was originally scheduled to be played in Dharamsala but the ground was declared unfit and the BCCI shifted the match to Indore.

Although Rohit, Pujara and Iyer got out to shots that perhaps could have been avoided on this wicket, Rathour said it was an off day and nobody played rash strokes.

"It was a challenging wicket for sure. It did more than we expected. There was moisture on the surface which made the ball turn sharply. Definitely, we could have scored more runs but I don't think anybody played poor cricket or rash shots. It's just that we had an off day as a batting unit," he said.

In reply, Australia opener Usman Khawaja struck 60 as the visitors reached 156 for 4 at Stumps. When asked about the pitch eased up in the second and third sessions, Rathour said it did get a bit slower.

"It felt like that (the pitch changed a bit as the day progressed). I won't be able to comment on that, the guys playing in the middle will be able to give a better idea but it felt that went a little slower. It was not turning as sharply as it was in the morning. That's the only difference. To credit them, I think they bowled really well. They hit the right areas," he added.